Today, a large percentage of electronic computations and electronic content management operations are performed by cloud platforms. Cloud platforms deliver computing as a service to one or more clients. A cloud platform may provide users with a cloud service allowing users to upload, store, and share files or other electronic content using remote servers. Typically, a user may use a cloud service to store files for a multitude of purposes, such as data archival, ease of access to the file irrespective of location, time or electronic device used for accessing the file, sharing of the file with other users, and the like. A variety of files may be stored on a cloud service, including files used for personal or professional use, such as data files, portable document format (pdf) files, word processing files, text files, images, photographs, multimedia content for entertainment purposes, and the like.
For example, a user may operate in various contexts, wherein in each of them the user plays a different role and has different responsibilities. These different roles might relate to the professional or personal life of the user in the role of employee, contractor, customer, supplier, or family member, for example. Within these various contexts, a user may use different user electronic devices (e.g., desktop computers, laptop computers, personal computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.) or user electronic devices that utilize remote processing capability (e.g., applications hosted on a web site or a virtual machine hosted in a data center). Different computing environments might be installed on user electronic devices with local processing capabilities (e.g., different operating systems, virtual software environments, Web applications, native applications, containers, BIOS/APIs, etc.) to interact with a cloud platform.
Further, various global or local communications networks (the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area networks, and the like) offer a user a vast amount of information. The information includes a multitude of contextual topics, such as but not limited to, news and current affairs, maps, company information, financial information and resources, traffic information, games and entertainment-related information. Users use a variety of user electronic devices (desktop computers, laptop computers, notebooks, smartphones, tablets, and the like) to have access to rich content (such as images, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia content from such networks).
Generally speaking, a given user can access computing services on a cloud platform regardless of pre-determined hardware/software systems and communications networks in use. A user can access a cloud platform via a communications network by two principle means. A given user can access a particular resource directly, either by typing an address of the resource (typically a Universal Resource Locator (URL), such as www.webpage.com) or by clicking a link in an e-mail or in another web resource.
A given user may use a cloud platform for file storage purposes. Typically, a user may use a cloud storage service to store files for a multitude of purposes, such as data archival, ease of access to the file irrespective of location or time, sharing of the file with other users, and the like. A variety of files may be stored on a cloud storage service, including files used for personal or professional use, such as data files, portable document format (pdf) files, word processing files, text files, images, photographs, multimedia content for entertainment purposes, and the like.
In cloud storage services, various problems have to be solved by a cloud service provider. One of such problems is spam distribution performed by malicious users or malicious software. Spammers or malicious software may use infrastructure of the cloud storage service to distribute advertising content, viruses, sniffers, other harmful software, and other types of digital content deemed to be harmful or unwanted by ordinary users of the cloud storage service or considered such by the administrators of the cloud storage service. It is important therefore for a cloud storage service to be able to quickly detect and react to spam attacks and mass distribution of harmful software and other unwanted digital content items.